


love like this

by Blepbean



Category: Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst (just a bit), Author didn’t proofread or edit... again, Background Yasammy, Ben writes to deal with his queer yearning bc I do that and I say so, Fluff, M/M, Oblivious!Ben, Pining!Kenji, Y E A R N I N G, character exploration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:54:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27148990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blepbean/pseuds/Blepbean
Summary: Ben took a bet that if he got a record time on a marathon, he’ll get a puppy. Trying to prove that he’s not just kid anymore that’s scared of everything, he goes to someone he’s never spoken before, the rich jock leader of the running team. Kenji Kon.They fall into a clumsy laugher, easy-going. Ben thinks: this is what I want, sharing laughter and more. I want to remember what makes you tick, what makes you burst into flames or laughter as we burn the dinner from laughing ourselves too much.This, this is what he wants. This and more.
Relationships: Kenji Kon/Ben Pincus
Comments: 17
Kudos: 110





	love like this

**Author's Note:**

> benkenji nation lets rise 😌🤚 btw this isn’t edited and I wrote it in like four to five hours so djsisjsjsjsjsj
> 
> kudos, comments and feedback is appreciated

Now that Ben looks back on it, it’s a really stupid idea.

His feet tremble as he walks through the walls, filling up with the usual cliques that you’ll find. The books in his hands slowly feel heavier and heavier with each step he takes. The hallway, it’s too loud, too many people filling up space. He isn’t made for this space, the tiles that're polished everyday that can reflect the lights above and also the gum that’s been up there for god knows how long.

He feels like curling inwards, growing smaller so no one can see him as he makes his way to the hall. His hands are shaky when he moves his books to his other hand, opening up his fanny pack until he bumps into someone’s chest. Within seconds he’s tripping over his own foot, momentum carrying the both of them down.

He catches a glimpse of who it is.

He doesn’t know him, but he’s seen him around the school. The rich, famous captain of a track team who has girls swooning over him twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. 

Kenji Kon.

He lands on something else, not hard, but not soft either. He groans, heads up. Everything is a little bit blurry and messy as rubs his eyes, groaning. He thinks of how embarrassing this is, people stopping by to look at them, he wants to move school and to never show himself out in public.

His next thought is: _is my notebook ruined?_

Within a second Kenji stirs, sitting up, groaning about his hair or whatever until he registers what’s happening.

“Oh my god I’m… I’m so sorry I was--” Ben stands up, already taking his books, cheeks burning of embarrassment, “so totally my bad I was totally not even looking I mean--”  
  
“What’s your name?” Kenji says.   
  


They lock eyes. Kenji’s eyes in the lighting make his eyes look like the colour of deep, rich earth. But he knows those types of colour changes, he’s seen it before. Brown eyes turning into soft, silky sheen of honey. Golden, tempered with a sense of warmth that comes from fire.

The world starts up again and Ben takes his books, eyebrows stitching together, “your uh… your face is red. Are you okay? Do you have a fever because I can--”  
  
Kenji quickly stands up, “no, no, it’s um,” he moves his hands in the air like he’s trying to conjure words out of nothingness, “it’s uh… nothing.”

Around them people start to move. He thought that they would stand there, taking pictures while they laughed about it at lunch. They aren’t, all of them busy with their phones are talking gossip.

The silence is filling up with unsaid words, Kenji scratching his head and rocking on heels. Ben can’t find his words, it’s not there. He’s usually good at them, writing them down, turning them into a flow of sweet nothings, using complex and rich words to describe a feeling, like a thrum within your chest or how someone’s face could shine with so much joy that it overshines the sun.

But not _saying_ them. God no.

“You’re um… you’re Kenji Kon, right?”

  
“That’s um,” he rubs his fingers together, “yeah that’s me.”

Before he could speak, Ben’s words suddenly faltered, dying, tasting bitter inside his own mouth. He promised himself and his dad he wouldn’t be like this anymore, scared, closed off, keeping it behind his stitched lips. Something in him thrums, wanting to push it all out into the open. 

“I know that we’ve never talked before but my dad said that if I could run a marathon in record time then I could get a puppy and I’m only really doing this--”

“Yes.”

He thought he didn’t hear that correctly. Ben squints his eyes at him.

“That’s it?”  
  
He crosses his arm, “I mean like.. I’m not the best. If you want someone to train you then Yasmina would be better, but… yeah.”

He thought that this was a joke, a ruse, something out of a dream. Kenji Kon _doesn’t_ ask like this, he’s standoffish and usually smiles, bragging about his wealth that he throws around like it’s useless as dirt, something that can be replaced. He has a swagger on him that Ben gets second hand embarrassment from, and he wears sunglasses _inside_.

It’s like he’s someone else, another human being in front of him. Tumbling over his words and his cheeks going red--which Ben is still getting worried about--he’s not like this. Where is Kenji? The ‘ladies magnet’ jock that everyone talks about and follows on instagram. 

Ben clears his throat, “that’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Oh and I need Sammy’s number--”  
  
“--You’re not getting in with her--”

“--It’s not for me it’s for… someone else.”

“ _Oh_.”

Oh…

“She’s--”

“--I know.”

Kenji clears his throat, looking down onto the floor and rocking on his heels once again before saying: “meet me at the oval after school,” before he could say anything. He walks away from him too quickly, and Ben finds himself rooted onto the floor, staring and staring, wondering what has happened to him.

  
  
  
  


He writes something in his notebook during English, with his head resting on his hand. It goes like this:

_How do people fall in love? What is it like? Is it like in the movies? Where they know each other by heart and know each other’s steps before it ever happens? Passed down between quiet love letters, pouring all of themselves into perfectly selected words. Poetry. And their words going down into history. Something like: I will miss you, my love. Or: If I die, I will wait for you, then we will be reincarnated and find each other in our next life._

He quickly wrote it down, his writing messy.

  
  


**h*ll hole**

**_dino go brr_ **

_Hey guys_

_Darius_

**_Sammmyyy <3_ **

_BEN!!_

_WHO’S YASMINA?_

_I don’t know_

**_Sammmyyy <3_ **

_Ben Pincus._

_I gave Kenji your number I”m so sorry_

_I needed him to train me to get a record time on the marathon_

_Because I really want a puppy_

**_dino go brr_ **

_We all know it’s not about the dog._

_You don’t have to prove anything to your dad_

_I had to learn that the hard way_

_I knowwwww_

_Stop analysing me oaijdodsj_

**_Sammmyyy <3_ **

_Ooohhh she’s texted me heart emojis_

_What does that mean?_

_I gtg sorry_

  
  


When Ben arrives, Kenji’s sitting on the bleachers. He doesn’t have his khaki cargo pants and pink T-shirt on, with the sunglasses hanging on his pocket. But he isn’t wearing any of those things. The sweatpants clings to his thighs and legs but an oversized grey puma hoodie softens him.

He looks… surprisingly human. He’s getting to know him, through the little things that Ben hasn’t seen before. He doesn’t say something about money when he stands up, or says _anything_ about being a ‘tall glass of coffee’. Instead when he looks up at his phone something changes in his face that he can’t quite read, his eyes glint and his lips curl into a smile.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

The wind rustles and picks up leaves between them. 

“Um… I don’t know how to run.”

“That’s… that’s okay,” he steps off the bleachers, “we just need the pace, it’s not about the speed, it’s about the steady pace that you can set yourself,” Kenji pauses, but he doesn’t look and judge at his body, just looking at him like another thin, frail boy. Instead, Kenji’s eyes lingers on his face for just a bit more longer.

“The marathon starts in a month,” Kenji says, “so we’re gonna have to develop a routine. Everyday we run, with ten minute breaks in between.”

“But--

“--And on the weekends we run three laps around the park.”

“Three!? I could get hurt, o-or trip! Or hurt my ankle or--

“--Yasmina’s worse than me,” he chuckles, “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he shoves his hands into his pockets, “trust me, I wouldn’t do that to _you_ ,” he says it like he means it, with such tender and care. No jokes or anything attached. He looks at him, _really_ looks at him. 

His skin was like fawn, the type of light that occurs in forests, a soft golden, yellow brown. It’s soft, smooth, but also a bit tempered with creases and bumps on his knuckles that came from running. His hair isn’t gelled up, but it turns into soft curls that cover his forehead, like clouds amidst the sea of blue.

Kenji isn’t like that. Yet he is. Just as Ben thought he knows who Kenji is, here he is. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


In his notebook in his ten-minute break, he writes:

_In a spin of things, just as you thought you saw through something see-through, they add something else, another object, another fraction, another reflection. You can see the depths, the steepness of it and the measurements. It’s strange._

He quickly throws it in the bin.

  
  
  
  
  


Ben slumps into the table.

“Ben?”

“Hi Sammy.”

She fixes her pinkhead band on her hair, shoving a tupperware of food towards him. This is how their friend group worked, Sammy is there to keep them alive with food, filling up the room with positivity even though sometimes she feels like she’s lost all hope in the world. Ben is the one that keeps them in check, putting up boundaries so they don’t put themselves in danger.

And Darius--

Darius is the funny one, the ‘dino nerd’ that’s obsessed with the dinosaur VR game that everyone talks about. But ever since his dad’s condition worsened, the less he stayed at school and his jokes slowly turned into one word replies.

He spends most of his time at the hospital.

Which leaves the two of them back at school, the two of them prodding and pushing Darius with baked cookies from Sammy and texts from Ben. 

“I’m not hungry,” he murmurs.

“Stop lying to yourself!” She replies, standing up to sit next to him. Her skin turns into a sheen of something like light gold when she steps out into the sunlight, “it’s my _abuela’s_ recipe, you must be hungry from that running.”

He buries his face into his arm. Then he feels a shadow on him.

“Kenji?” She exclaims.  
  


He pops his head, “KENJI?!”

He sits down next to him with a bag of imported potato chips, the text in Japanese. 

“Aw,” Sammy sits back down on her seat, “that tiny potato man is so cute.”

  
“It’s not _cute!”_

“No it’s not cute,” she puts her hands together, “it’s _adorable_.”

His cheeks burn red as he turns to Ben, his hair gelled up again, not in those curls again.

“Hey,” Kenji breathes out. As if it’s been waiting all morning to talk to him.

“Hi.”

He clears his throat, “I just wanted to talk to my good old pal here.”  
  


“We’re barely know each other--”

“--We will throughout this month, because you want a--”

“--puppy,” Ben sighs, then his lips twist into a soft smile, the ones that’s unguarded, that type that you can’t hold back, “thank you, for doing this.”

“It’s nothing really my schedule is so flexible thanks to my organiser back at my mansion and--”

“No really,” Ben takes Kenji’s hands into his, squeezing it, looking at him in the eyes. Brown, a deep brown. Maybe that’s Ben’s second favourite crayon, back in his desk where he sometimes draws with it, most of the time he writes with it, “ _thank you_.”

Kenji’s eyes shift again, something unreadable. He realises how close they are, how they’re touching. Too close yet too far. This must be really awkward for him, and something twists inside him. This feels _childish_ , a word that his mother uses so many times.

This bubble of the moment is quickly broken by Sammy typing on her phone, giggling before saying: “Yasmina is texting me an emoji with heart eyes. Ben what does that mean?”

  
  
  


In the corner of his maths notebook, he writes:

_Why do you act like this? Who are you? Why are you helping me?_

He crosses it out with a black pen.

  
  
  


They get into a rhythm, a routine that sometimes breaks apart when Ben is too terrified to run at the track sometimes. They run after school, up until the sun hangs low on the horizon. But Kenji, he’s always there, helping him, just behind him, urging and pushing him just a little bit, not too much.

He doesn’t treat him like a child. He doesn’t groan or tell him to move faster, in the same tone that his mother tells him when he’s told to ‘grow up’. Kenji is there, like a guiding hand to feel the earth shake beneath him with one more step, one more move, one more breath. Around him he feels… normal. Just another teenager.

When they take a break, Ben pants, feeling like his lungs are being crushed beneath a fridge. It’s an improvement, last week it felt like it was being pinned under an entire house. He takes Kenji’s advice and walks around in circles with his hands above his head, his mouth feels dry, his heartbeat echoing all over his ribs.

Kenji is there beside him, scrolling through his feed. Taking snapchats from other people. It’s like he’s shifting into another person once more, the funny, rich jock who’s the captain of the running team. He isn’t the soft, vulnerable Kenji, the type that’s careful around Ben, to guide him.

Who is he?

When he takes another step, he almost trips. Kenji catches him. He’s back to someone else, what Kenji is whenever Ben is around him.

“Ben--”  
  


“--Who are you?” He says, “because you keep… _changing_ when you’re around me.”

The air goes still, Ben wishes he took those words back. There’s an undertow of annoyance that brims, of wanting to push, he’s not like this.

“I… I don’t know,” he says.

_I don’t know_. The three words echo all around him. In the sky the sun starts to hang low, turning the clouds into soft hues of pink and yellows. And in turn it makes an outline of Kenji, with the sun behind him, clouds swirling. His silhouette looks like liquid gold, made from a thousand suns.

_I don’t know_.

He’s standing there, and Ben thinks of stupid scenarios that contains lazy mornings and laughter that fills the kitchen, with the sun hanging low and turning everything golden. The drawings, the knick knacks, the photos of them. The sun touches it all and makes it glow while they make dinner in the kitchen.

It’s a terrifying thought. So throw it into a void before it grows into late night thoughts.

“I’m sorry, for asking that,” Ben says, “I should… I should go home.”

He leaves before Kenji can say anything else.

  
  
  
  


In the corner of his drawings, he writes:

_I’ve never met a person who has a heart like gold, but it’s like he’s turning it into diamonds._

  
  
  
  
  
  


**h*ll hole**

_hey god, me again_

**_dino go brr_ **

_he’s yearning again_

_I’m not yearning_

_I would never_

**_Sammmyyy <3_ **

_ooh Ben remember how you wrote a whole poem_

_And you submitted it to the contest and you won_

_And you made up the explanation about the poem_

_But it was actually hhhhhhhhhhhh_

_BEN HAS MGGHFJDDPHHONE_

**_dino go brr_ **

_Ben…_

_I don’t have her phone_

_what are you talking about_

**_dino go brr_ **

_Sammy?_

**_Sammmyyy <3_ **

_Here_

**_dino go brr_ **

_She doesn’t text like that_

**_Sammmyyy <3_ **

_I do now!_

**_dino go brr_ **

_Give her phone back_

_If she stops annoying me_

**_dino go brr_ **

_She’s just telling the truth_

_I thought that you would have my back_

  
  


**_dino go brr_ **

_gtg_

_say hi to your dad for us!!_

**_dino go brr_ **

_I will!!!!!_

_Sammy can you behave_

_I’ll give you a signature from_

_Brooklynn_

_Oh hang on_

**_Sammmyyy <3_ **

_YOU KNOW BROOKLYNN_

_LIKE THEEEE BROOKLYNN_

_OMG IM SUCH A BIG FAN OF HER_

_Kenji knows her_

_I think they’re friends_

**_Sammmyyy <3_ **

_OMGNFKDNSKSKSKSKSJSKS_

_I LOVE YOU_

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


This time, they train in the middle of the night. Ben slowly warms up and stops whining about he might trip and fall, injure himself and leave a bruise. The oval lights are on, washing everything with a bland white. Ben pants and pants, getting into a pace like Kenji told him. He counts his steps and feels his breathing, in and out, in and out, in and—

He trips over a rock and suddenly face plants.

He groans, pain searing hot on his knee when he sits up. Ben doesn’t think about the pain or the wound on his knee that looks raw. He thinks about what someone would say if they’re looking at him. He’a turning back to his childish self, someone who cries when he’s hurt, too afraid of _everything_. 

“Ben—“

“—I’m fine I’m just hurt,” he winces, trying to stand up, “I’m fine I can keep going.”

“It’s going to get infected.”

“I don’t care.”

“Just listen to me!” Kenji grips his hand and turns himself around, his eyes bearing onto him, heavy, holding him like he’s going to slip through his fingers, “you don’t care but I care! So just… let me help you.”

That’s how they find themselves on the bleachers with his leg on Kenji, the stirring of rain coming through tiny droplets. Ben looks up into the night sky, clouds swirling around the moon. 

“Did you know the stars that we see are dead?” 

Kenji rummages through his fanny pack to find his bandages, “what do you mean?”

“I’ve read it up online,” he hums, “that the stars were seeing are dead.”

Above them the abyss of space twinkles of stars, there’s not a lot of light pollution in this town, so he can vasts stretches of stars, floating far, far away from them. He squints his eyes and tries to look for the Milky Way, the tiny stretch of stars that look like spilled milk.

“They’re dead?” Kenji asks.

“They’re already dead, and what we’d seeing now is just the past,” he turns back to Kenji, who’s focused on his wound, “that the sky is fake.”

Ben’s murky eyes swirl with something, in the lighting it looks cloudy rainy mornings and warm tea, of blankets and looking out into the window with a book. He’ll bet on which raindrop is the fastest, watching it race across the window until he’s gone.

He can see someone else there too.

He shakes his head, a stupid thought. 

“I don’t mind that the sky is fake,” Kenji pauses, looking out into the oval like like he’s trying to conjure a distant memory, one full of warmth and laughter, “I think it’s pretty,” he looks back at Ben.

“Pretty?”

“Yeah, pretty things. Like the things that my dad and mum bought me back in Japan. It was like those special jewellery that you buy for your loved ones. But when we arrived here everything was so… different and new and _terrifying_. And then they got richer and richer, and they just bought more and more to just fill up space. But they never really paid attention to me. The staff always lets me win in a game of bowling and tennis and soccer and everything. But not running.”

Kenji breathes out a heavy sigh, “I’m sorry, I just ranted—“

“—No it’s fine!” He takes his foot off Kenji, “really. I want to know more about you. Plus Sammy really needs a signature from Brooklynn.”

Kenji chuckles, filling up the bubble within them, sweet and soft like honey. He thought that he forgot how to breathe for a moment, which is weird.

“Oh, me and Yasmina dated.”

“Huh?”

“ _Dated_ , it’s in the past,” he shifts on his seat, “I think… We're too stubborn for each other. But with Yasmina and Sammy—“

“—She’s too oblivious,” Ben says, “she keeps asking us why she’s sending heart eye emojis,” he recalls back to that time in science class, Sammy tapping him on the shoulder against to ask him what _‘ily’_ means, “but I thought you would have girls swooning over you.”

“I like someone else,” he says. 

They lock eyes, holding each other’s gaze. Ben doesn’t want to tear his eyes away. 

“Who?”

“A guy.”

“I thought you were—“

“I’m bi… I lean more on girls but… I really like him.”

Ben cocks his head, moving closer, curious, “who?”

“I can’t tell,” Kenji says, “it’s a secret.”

And they fall into this comfortable silence afterwards, no unsaid words lingering between them. It’s just them and the stars, in the middle of the night. Ben doesn’t think of the marathon or anything. Instead he goes into this trance of calm, his head empty. 

He lets himself become a ‘teenager’, just another fifteen year old as he stares and stares and stares into the abyss, a lie that’s plastered onto them. But he might be okay with such a pretty lie. Ben finds himself looking back at Kenji.

And this _warmth_ spread throughout him that reminds him of a fireplace lit during winter.

  
  
  
  
  
  


In his notebook after he got home, he writes:

_Love is when people burst into scorching flames, into grand gestures of love that have them making promises that they’ll follow each other into the unknowns and into the dangers. But maybe love is through quieter moments, slowly creeping up, putting everything through rose-tinted glasses, where just a single laughter can make you forget how to breathe._

He doesn’t trash that one. He keeps it.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


His palms are clammy and he’s shaking. 

This is a bad idea.

His clothes are a bit too tight on him, feeling like he’s suffocating under his sweat. Ben’s breathing goes frantic and shaky, all over the place. He walks in circles and puts hand sanitizer on his hands within five minutes. He puts his hands over his head and practises the breathing techniques that Kenji told him to do.

When Kenji arrives, everything melts away and he throws himself into him, burying his face into the crook of his shoulder.

“Ben?”

“This is a bad idea, right? This is a bad idea—“

“You don’t have to do this.”

Ben holds him tighter, feeling the warmth from him. He doesn’t smell of expensive perfume, the musky type that his dad wears that makes his nose hurt. Instead, he smells of pine, of something sweet but light, of summer days and sprawling fields of grass with picnics full of homemade strawberry jam and honey.

He smells so… familiar.

“No,” he tears himself off him, “I uh… I want to do this. I do. It’s not about the stupid puppy it’s about proving myself that to _them_ that I’m not… I’m not a kid anymore,” he takes off his fanny pack, “I’m not scared of everything.”

“Is it really for you? Or for them?”

Everything in him stops. 

He sits down on a crate and sighs, putting his fanny pack beside him, “I don’t know…”

Kenji sits next to him, and Ben rests his head on his shoulder. He feels him tense for relaxing. The truth is, he doesn’t know why he’s doing this. It’s a mix of both, or maybe not. But whatever it is, he feels safe around Kenji, a warmth flows through him that feels so… familiar. 

Like home. He can feel the warmth, find it even in the darkness. The warmth comes from the kitchen with the radio blasting stupid love songs, and the smell of fried tempura as they try to cook but desperately burn. It comes from lazy mornings, stirring up while the sun flows their bedroom with too many plants and books.

It’s a strange feeling.

  
  
  
  
  


Before he runs, Ben graffitis onto the wall. It says:

_Run._

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Within the pop of a gun, he runs. He remembers what Kenji told him. Keep your breathing even and set yourself a pace. When he turns, he sees Sammy and Brooklynn behind the rope, holding hands as she shouts at him go, runs. It feels like he seeing a familiar people within a crowd of strangers, already knowing the experiences that they’ve been through.

Darius. He’s here too. He came out of the hospital _just to see him_. But Kenji is there, cheering him with his hair gelled, with his lips turning into a callous smile, a joy so bright that it takes over the crowd. It’s like gold. Not the diamond that he pretends he is.

And he runs, he feels the ground thud beneath him and every pant and every sweat and every heartbeat he can feel it all. He’s not a kid anymore, the type that’s terrified of everything. But he’s still _him_ , Ben Pincus, who puts on hand sanitizer and keeps everyone in check.

That’s when he realises he doesn’t need to prove anyone of who he is. Because with the way his breathing comes and goes and how he’s slowly overtaking the runners through his pacing, he thinks of Kenji. He thinks of him, always there, guiding him, pushing him just enough to take the step.

_I don’t mind that the sky is fake. I think it’s pretty._

Within a moment he realises that he crosses the finish line of the marathon, his cheeks hit and flush, his lungs gasping for air. He remembers what Kenji told him, walk around for ten minutes to cook down. He doesn’t even look at the results above him, he doesn’t care.

But he suddenly feels Kenji hugging him tightly, saying:

“You did it!”

“Huh?”

“You got a record time.”

It takes him a few moments I digest, before he steps away from Kenji and almost collapses. He did it.

“I got a record time?” 

Around them, the sound of cheering and the brightness of the park blends together. Confetti rains down on them and some of it sticks to his sunscreen-mixed-with-sweat drenched skin. The colours of red, white and royal blue twirling and mixing. But between them he catches brown eyes, sunlight striking his eyes and turning it into chasms of honey, soft and warm like liquid gold.

Then, something clicks.

Ben chuckles, “it’s me.”

“What?”

“It’s me,” he laughs, “you liked me!”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I was dumb!”

They fall into a clumsy laugher, easy-going. Ben thinks: _this is what I want, sharing laughter and more. I want to remember what makes you tick, what makes you burst into flames or laughter as we burn the dinner from laughing ourselves too much._

This, this is what he wants. This and more.

So Ben kisses him, and he realises how soft his lips are and how it tastes if strawberries, but also a tinge of sweets. He lets himself smile into it, pulling him closer like he’s going to disappear but he knows he won’t. Because they’ll have more of these silly moments, in the privacy of their own homes in the near future or public.

When they pull apart, Ben rests his head on Kenji’s shoulder.

“You liked me,” he breathes out.

“Yeah.”

“And I’m getting a puppy.”

“And you’re getting a puppy.”

Ben thinks he’ll never get over him.


End file.
